Possible dominance issue?

Some of you have given me advice on training bite inhibition to my puppy, but now I think I have a whole new problem Recently I noticed that my dog occasionally humps his favorite stuffed toy (its a black and white panda). I checked and his balls havent started to drop yet so I believe he's trying to express dominance. He has also started to posture over my cat. The reason its becoming an issue is because now he's displaying some minor aggression towards me. If I'm on the floor with him and he starts to chew on my shirt or sweater, I will tell him no. Most of the time he listens, but recently he has started to growl and snap at me when I do. If I ignore him he just does it when I come back, and I don't want to put him in his crate because I dont want him to associate that with punishment. Whats the best way to handle this?

He should have two normally descended testicles when you bring him hom at 8 weeks.

THsi is nothing to do with dominance.

Just remove yourself from him for about a minute every time he plays inappropriately with you and remove him from the toys or cat if he does it with him.

It has nothing to do with gender, sex or dominance the dog is merely over excited.

My puppy bitch had a short period of doing this when very young (the objects of her efforts were a stuffed draught stopper and stuffed teddy). I then read that it is a display of dominance/aggression and shouldn't be allowed to continue. (No idea if this is true)

*have to say here it did cause much hilarity at first. But I noticed that she would do it when in a sort of 'strop' if it had been made clear she could not 'have something' or 'continue doing something'. (Almost as if she was 'taking it out' on the toy!)

So we removed the things she was 'utilising' lol! I replaced the monkey draught stopper with one that was a plain roll and she showed no interest in anything without a 'face' (not sure if this was relevant or coincidence) as she very quickly stopped this 'humping' and hasn't ever done it since.

Interesting. Thanks SB for that - as I said, I wasn't sure it was correct what I'd been told. She just didn't seem 'aggressive' - more like she 'wanted to do one thing' and when stopped from doing that - she turned to this instead!

But we seem to have hit on the right method of putting a stop to it by chance anyway.

And this was when she was still too young to go down when out - (a delayed start because of illness and having injections later) so I guess she was probably a bit bored too.

Sounds like normal puppy behaviour to me, bothing to do with dominance and I would get that out of your head now and start looking at him as a playful and mischevious puppy. As SB says, remove yourself from the situation for a moment or two whilst ignoring him so he realises that over zealous play gets him nowhere.

Sounds perfectly normal to me too. My puppy growls and barks during play simply because she is over stimulated and thinks it's the best game ever, not because she wants to see me submit so she can begin her reign as ruler of the house

Agree with all of the above.

What breed is your puppy?

Totally agree with SB

All puppies go through these stages

Phoebe does this when she grounded due to having a surgery or somthing. Humping and a bit edgy

He's a German Shepherd/Staffie mix. What about when he stances over my cat? Do I just need to remove him from the room as well?